You can subscribe and turn off autodownloads, which is what I do for podcasts I listen to less frequently so that I don't have so many episodes but listen to frequently enough that I don't have to look them up again.

choubetcha wrote:Is anyone listening to Welcome to Night Vale? I finally broke down and tried the first episode, and I like it except that I find the instrumental music under the news really distracting. I know it's been everywhere lately, so surely there are some snarker fans?

I'm a bit late to this party but I've listened to the first 15 episodes and really enjoy it. The only complaint I have is the song that plays instead of the weather, but that's more about my listening habits than the music. I listen to podcasts when I'm in bed going to sleep, and Cecil's beautiful, deep, mellifluous voice lulls me to sleep, then when the song plays it jolts me awake again. But like I said, it's my fault, not actually a problem with the podcast.

I also like a podcast by Paul Vincent called 'Myths and History of ancient Greece and Rome', free on iTunes. It's very thorough, and I enjoy it a lot.

choubetcha wrote:Is anyone listening to Welcome to Night Vale? I finally broke down and tried the first episode, and I like it except that I find the instrumental music under the news really distracting. I know it's been everywhere lately, so surely there are some snarker fans?

I'm a bit late to this party but I've listened to the first 15 episodes and really enjoy it. The only complaint I have is the song that plays instead of the weather, but that's more about my listening habits than the music. I listen to podcasts when I'm in bed going to sleep, and Cecil's beautiful, deep, mellifluous voice lulls me to sleep, then when the song plays it jolts me awake again. But like I said, it's my fault, not actually a problem with the podcast.

I always skip the weather. Most of those songs just aren't to my taste. But I adore the rest of the show. I got some late Christmas money and spent it all on MST3K DVDs and books, and promptly started wailing and gnashing my teeth because I'd forgotten to buy the Sherriff's Secret Police hoodie they have in the store.

I also like a podcast by Paul Vincent called 'Myths and History of ancient Greece and Rome', free on iTunes. It's very thorough, and I enjoy it a lot.

Well, shit. Here I was going to start paring down my podcast subscriptions and I ended up adding one instead!

I got to go to one of the live Welcome To Night Vale shows last night in Portland, and it was amaaaaaazing! No spoilers, because it will eventually be released as an episode of the podcast, but the live theater element of it was incredible. If the tour is coming near you and there are still tickets left, definitely go, y'all.

There's a new podcast that I absolutely love called Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men ("Because it's about time someone did!"). It's also available on iTunes, but make sure to check that website for fun extras they post, like some of the funny fan art they've gotten already and some scans from certain comics they've talked about.

Now, I know a lot about the X-Men. Like, to the point where I'm probably going to die alone with 20 cats. But even I can't know everything and it's fun to fill in the weird gaps I have with stuff like this podcast. Rachel and Miles are fun and funny and even if they're talking about stuff I already know, it's still really entertaining. I love this podcast a lot!

I don't like this whole Strexcorp storyline (those fuckers hurt Khoshekh!), but it was only a minor annoyance until last episode. And then this latest episode comes out and it doesn't even have any Cecil! Just obnoxious Kevin and Lauren! N O P E . I hope Tamika Flynn and her followers burn them out from within.

On a more positive note, I've bought both of their live shows and they were great. I think my favorite little bit from the last one was Cecil screaming "NO!!! NO!!!" when Steve Carlsberg tried to ask a question during the mayoral debate. Heeee!

Is anyone else following TAL's spinoff Serial about an investigation into the case of a convicted murderer who at the very least had, what seems to be, an unfair trial due to dereliction (or straight up tanking) of representation. It's basically a serialized spread out episode of 48 Hours/Nightline over the course of supposedly a year of reporting. I don't know how well I'm going to deal with this given how often these sorts of investigations can't "resolve" narratively in any satisfying way, and it's bad enough when it's over a one hour episode, but damn a whole year of half hour podcasts, while they are semi real time "reporting"? Gah, but I'm already hooked.

So far the guy who was convicted, Adnan seems like a really good guy, he doesn't appear to be lying and he lacks a convincing motive and depending on the recollections of that Asia girl, to have not had the opportunity. I'm not convinced he's innocent, but I am convinced he got screwed during the trial.

OTOH, there's Jay and his friend Jen who really could not appear to be any less truthful or any more sketchy, yet there's "evidence" corroborating their very inconsistent stories. Also also he killed her in broad daylight in a Best Buy parking lot? WHAT?

I'm really enjoying it. I am wondering if Adnan, despite seeming nice, really did it. Because yeah - either Jay is lying or he is. But I also think it's quite possible that Jay was being lead into false accusations - it would explain the inconsistencies.

I didn't really trust the Asia bit of things because while she claimed to see him, she also had the "if you did it, I'm really mad" bit in the original letter. Which, if you're his alibi, why the doubt? Something about that smacked of someone inserting themself into the story and regretting it later.

I didn't think Asia saying that was that surprising she didn't know Adnan that well (which she admits in her letters), she just knew she saw him in the library that day, after school, and she saw him for not very long. She explained that she thought they had *physical evidence* that had convicted him not just an inconsistent material witness who claims to have been smoking pot all day long. Her being uncertain of his innocence while also certain she saw him in the library, made sense because she didn't know enough about him or the case to be certain he didn't still kill Hae anyway.

I think the more compelling thing is that so much of our justice system (obviously in this case that lacked ANY physical evidence) rests on the slippery-ness of human memory, and the often 80% inaccurate recollections of eye witnesses. I find that pretty awful/depressing.

Having said that I think Adnan probably did kill her with Jay's *full* participation, but that doesn't change that he was wrongly convicted in a legal ethical sense, and that Jay got off scottfree for his accessorizing like a mofo.

I agree on your assessment of what happened. That they were supposedly "barely friends" but Jay regularly borrowed his car and cell phone? Seems odd.

I think it's a case of "they did it, but Jay's statements are inaccurate/changing because he was being lead as a witness".

I am increasingly bothered by my perception that the narrator/journalist is not actually impartial - there's a way she talks that makes me feel she wants Adnan to be innocent. It's not blatant but I feel like it's there and it bugs.

I'm all over the place on what I think happened, but I am hooked, one way or the other. I'm not convinced Sarah Koenig is fully unbiased - I think she likes Adnan as a person, at the very least - but I'm also not sure how necessary that is in this type of storytelling.

Right, I watched a Google hang out with Rabia, and she's like listen I took the story to Sarah Koenig, and I OBVIOUSLY did so with an "agenda" of believing him innocent, so IF SK thought the guy who was found guilty seems to have been 100% guilty via the evidence/a fair trial, she'd have no story to pursue. SK clearly experienced enough dissonance in the "evidence" v. the verdict that she thought it was worth looking into, but I also think since she lead off the series with the exercise about memory, and since TAL is a about storytelling, she might have just been equally or more fascinated by how all these different people experienced these events, and retold it to themselves, the cops, the jury, lawyers, friends.

I was more confused by why she felt it was a zero sum issue between Jay and Adnan's stories, it's totally possible *both* are lying, and both are telling truths. I mean Jay IS lying, his "lying" is on the record, but ipso facto that doesn't mean Adnan is being truthful/honest, no matter how gregarious he sounds/looks.

SERIAL -- gah, I love it so far. So many puzzling elements to the story. I don't know what to think about the Jay/Adnan relationship -- Jay seems incredibly shifty, but then again Adnan was initially downplaying how well they even knew each other/how often they would hang out, yet people on the track team said Jay picked Adnan up from practice all the time, so that day wasn't unusual in that sense...I just don't know.

This week's episode is really good. I'm so sad when it's over. I almost wish I'd waited to start it until it was finished, so that I could have "closure," but it's soooo good.And next week, she focuses on Jay. FINALLY!

I'm so relieved SK brought in some experts to pick this stuff over. I was sad too when this episode closed. And next week Jay. Finally. I *this* close to going and spoiling myself silly just find out what is going on with Jay now.

Yeah I found this one exhilarating and validating, in the sense that regardless of whether he did do it, the case was so WEAK, and he still got convicted. Here are a group of lawyers who do this sort of thing saying, yes this case was thin, too thin to have gone to trial in any ethical justice sense.

Despite what Sarah has said about the detectives/police department (and DA too) I think their work, and more precisely *lack* of work is pretty suspect. Which was evidenced in the trial when the DA asked Nisha about the call, and shut her down when she brought up how it happened a the video store Jay did not yet even work at. They didn't want to pursue any evidence that didn't obviously support their assumption of Adnan's guilt, and ignored the stuff they did find contradicting it.

So, I may or may not have just listened to all seven episodes of Serial in a row. So fascinating!

It would be really neat if Deirdre the law clinic lawyer had her own podcast as well - I just wanted her to keep telling stories about cases she's worked on. Though I imagine that could get really depressing really quickly, when you start getting into the nitty gritty of cases.

I should clarify that by "extremely flawed" I'm leaning to "almost entirely invented to fit the details they had", including guiding Jay and other witnesses into specific statements. But I'm still suspicious and leaning to Adnan with jay did kill her. I can't get past the level of interaction for supposed acquaintances, and other details like that.